Fewer book reviews are appearing in print because of recent cutbacks at newspaper book-review sections, but is the smaller number necessarily a bad thing? Most critics seem to think it is, in part because it tends to result in an uneven distribution of literary wealth: As the review space shrinks, a larger share of it is going to established authors who don’t need the attention – but whom editors believe they can’t ignore – at the expense of unknowns who do need it.

A slightly different view informs North Toward Home, the acclaimed 1967 memoir by Willie Morris, the late editor of Harper’s. Morris suggests that “too many reviews and too much talk about reviews” can hurt writers by eroding their faith in the importance of their work in its own right. That argument may have been stronger when good new authors could usually take for granted that they would get reviews in respected newspapers. Now those authors may receive none. And neglect can erode a writer’s faith as much as too many reviews of the wrong sort. But Morris makes a worthy point that’s in danger of getting lost amid the din about shrinking book-review sections: Reviews are often a mixed blessing.

Here’s more of his argument:

“A young writer’s work rests in a very real way on his own private ego – on his own personal faith that what he has to write and the way he writes it are important in themselves, important to his own time and to future generations. Why else subject oneself to the miseries of writing? When one is too closely involved in the world of publishing, this private faith can wear very thin. There are too many books, too many reviews and too much talk about reviews, too much concern about books as commodities, books as items of merchandise, book quotas, book prizes, book sales figures, book promotions. There is too much literary activity and too much literary talk, having little or nothing to do with the intensely private and precarious act of writing. There is too much predictable flattery. All this is necessary to the trade, but it generates a total atmosphere which can be destructive of one’s own literary values.”

This is the latest in a series of “Late Night With Jan Harayda” posts that appear after 10 p.m. Eastern Time and do not include reviews, which usually appear early in the day.

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Given the “sinking ship” state of so many newspapers, it’s not surprising that printed book reviews are getting tossed overboard, too. But online sources, though—do you suppose that most professional book talk, like so many other things, might eventually abandon print and make an Internet conversion? If that’s the case, I imagine that would likelier lead to “too much literary talk” with such a multitude of online outlets.

“Do you suppose that most professional book talk, like so many other things, might eventually abandon print and make an Internet conversion?” Yes, that’s already happening with literary trends and gossip. And it will probably happen eventually with reviews, too.

The problem right now is that while there are more voices talking about books — which is good — the quality of comment hasn’t kept pace with the quantity. Most of the reviews you read online are much more casual than you read in print. There’s a place for casual comment. But writers who have written serious and thoughtful books need serious and thoughtful reviews. And they are less and less abe to count on getting them. Let’s hope that changes …